"The West is facing a concerted effort by Islamic jihadists, the motives and goals of whom are largely ignored by the Western media, to destroy the West and bring it forcibly into the Islamic world -- and to commit violence to that end even while their overall goal remains out of reach. That effort goes under the general rubric of jihad."-- Robert Spencer

Tuesday, November 29, 2005

Terrorism is Bad, Mkay?

European countries and their Muslim neighbours vowed to unite in the fight against terrorism yesterday, but only after papering over a deep disagreement about who is a terrorist and who is a freedom fighter.

The leaders of the European Union and Mediterranean countries agreed that "terrorism can never be justified", promised to "condemn terrorism in all its manifestations without qualification" and said they would refuse to give a safe haven to terrorism.

But the impact of their agreement was irreparably weakened by the absence or boycott of seven of the eight Arab leaders who had been invited. Moreover, key proposals had to be watered down to maintain the show of unity on terrorism and the future of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

The biggest stumbling block was the problem of how to define terrorism.

The Syrian foreign minister, Farouq al-Sharaa, was among those demanding that the fight against terrorism had to protect "the right of peoples under foreign occupation to resistance" - a reference to insurgencies by Palestinians and Iraqis.

In the end the definition of terrorism was left undecided, with merely a commitment to negotiate an acceptable one at the United Nations by next year.

Yeah, they've been working on that since the 1970s. Wake me when the freedom fighters nuke Tel Aviv.